Does listening to “Monster Mash” & nursery rhymes on Spotify violate Screen-Free Week? This was MFA Dad’s question to me this morning. I suggested not & he’s reported that the nursery rhymes (if not “Monster Mash”) have totally brought some calm to our lately-crazed child.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have high-speed internet access constantly at our finger tips (&, yes, despite the dangers of screens for children, I still think internet access is a luxury… I’m not a luddite even if we don’t own a TV…) it’s inevitable that more of our daily activities take place through the medium of a screen, whether or not we’re watching something on YouTube or playing a game.

Do you need to know if you’ll need an umbrella? Want to listen to some music? Want to talk to Grandma & Grandpa? Want to try a new recipe? … There’s a screen involved in all those tasks at our house.

Mostly we’ve been keeping our screens off this week, but for those little daily tasks, it’s awful hard to not expose T to some amount of screen time, however minimal. And I don’t think I have a problem with that for a couple of reasons. 1) No one’s perfect & I don’t think Screen-Free Week is about perfection. 2) Screens are a fact of life for most of us & if we can model to T that we can use them without abusing them, then I think that’s a good lesson.

Our next challenge screen-free challenge will come tomorrow, when we will be traveling for almost 10 hours (cars, planes, layovers…). I’m certain T will stare at the TVs in the airport & on the planes, but we won’t be watching videos or playing games on my phone… because I have no videos or games on my phone! What will we do instead? I’m feeling underprepared right now, but stay tuned to see how we fare…